Janice Ellis’ flexible approach and creative solutions produce excellent results" Anne Ruta, Registrar, Daughters of the American Revolution Museum

Quarto has successfully completed many short and long-term contracts with numerous museums and US government agencies, including the Smithsonian Institution, for whom we have provided treatment and exhibition support for many years, the Library of Congress, the US Treasury Department, and the National Park Service. Our private clients receive as much attention to detail as the museums do, but are sometimes surprised at the amount of time it takes to complete a museum-quality treatment. They later say it's worth the wait to have the work done so well.

The Conservation Treatment of the Fort Stanwix Orderly Book for the National Park Service

Quarto Conservation of Books & Paper Inc. was contracted to assist Paper Conservators at the National Park Service's Willow Springs Conservation Center at Harpers Ferry, WV in the conservation treatment of the Fort Stanwix Orderly Book. Janice Ellis, Jahanvi Desai and two interns, Chu Yin Hsaio and Chiu Shih Hsin (graduate students from the Graduate Institute of Conservation of Cultural Relics at the Tainan National University of the Arts, Tainan, Taiwan, and students of Fei-Wen Tsai, Janice Ellis' colleague from Columbia University and the Smithsonian Institution) worked on the project. The following photographs show the step by step treatment procedure.

Click here to read about the history of the Fort Stanwix Orderly Book.

Before Treatment

Before treatment, the Fort Stanwix Orderly Book, a highly sought-after source of primary research about the Revolutionary War, was too fragile to be handled. The sewing was loose. Half of the upper cover was missing. Most of the leather on the spine was missing. The paper was soiled, extensively torn, and unstable. The decision was made not only to do a full conservation treatment on the Orderly Book to make it accessible to researchers for the first time, but also to produce four facsimile copies of the book.

Documentation

Conservation treatment of any kind affects the historical "life" of an artifact. Before treatment of an artifact begins, its current condition must be full described with both written and photo-documentation. This information becomes part of the permanent record of the artifact.

Collation

A primary component in the documentation of the Orderly Book was determining its sewing structure. The "collation" described how the pages of the book were physical put together and organized. It indicated which pages were congugate (connected), which pages were grouped together in a gathering, and the arrangement of gatherings to form the book. It provided conservators and bibliographers with a mechanism for determining whether pages were missing or added. Conservators complete a collation before disbinding a book because it provides a "roadmap" to how the book will be taken apart and put back together. The Orderly Book's collation revealed that there were pages missing.

paper fragment tucked behind sewing thread

Look Closely

Before the book was taken apart, following the collation's "roadmap," the conservators looked for evidence of torn-out pages, and discussed findings with the curators. Using dental tools to gently look behind the original sewing threads, they saw tiny fragments of the pages which had been torn-out. In this photo, a large fragment is visible nestled in curve of the dental tool.

Evidence

The paper fragments from the missing pages and sewing threads that they are wrapped around are labeled and saved in chemically stable polyethylene bags. This photo shows one of the smaller fragments of a lost page. (These evidence bags were stored in a specially made protective enclosure which fitted into the larger protective enclosure that housed the Orderly Book.)

Disbound

Once the documentation of the original condition of the Orderly Book was completed, the book was taken apart.

Page Repair

Paper repair began with dry cleaning the leaves to lift off surface dirt. Iron gall inks were stabilized. Losses were infilled and tears were mended with 100% kozo Japanese paper and zin shofu wheat starch paste. The original sewing holes were repaired in preparation for rebinding.

Jahanvi re-assembling the pages into gatherings

Re-assembly

Once the paper was repaired, the pages were re-assembled into gatherings in preparation for resewing.

Resewing

The Orderly Book was re-sewn with unbleached linen thread through the original sewing holes on three raised unbleached linen cords. It was resewn in the same manner as the original bookbinder.

Lining the Spine

The conservators decided to add a step to the re-binding of the Fort Stanwix Orderly Book which the original bookbinder failed to do. Conservators lined the spine to support the sewing. In this way, the re-binding remained sympathetic to the original but did not set it up to fail again. Conservators lined the spine with layers of 100% kozo Japanese paper and wheat starch paste followed by a cloth layer of unbleached airplane linen. These linings were purposefully made wider than the width of the spine to form "tabs" that will be used to re-attach the book covers. Lastly, a layer of reverse leather was added between the cords.

Front Cover Repaired

Half of the original front cover was missing. This area was re-constructed using three layers Renaissance paper, made from 100% linen by Barcham Green papermill in England. The Renaissance paper was wetted, crumpled and re-flattened to blend with the distressed texture of the original cover. The Renaissance paper was toned to match using Golden Liquid Acrylic paint. The layers were pasted together with zin shofu wheat starch paste.

Spine lining tabs used to re-attach covers

News and Announcements- Quarto posts links to new articles about conservation, and places company announcements here.

What customers have to say about our work